The Little Bangs List

The following is a list of the shuttles we've seen lost, or
probably lost, in Star Trek. This list only includes those lost whilst outside
their parent craft - when a Starship is destroyed, we make no effort to
add all the shuttles contained within it to the list.

Key

Symbol

Meaning

A shuttle certainly destroyed. This would typically involve either actually seeing the shuttle explode, or hearing dialogue that it has been destroyed.

A shuttle probably destroyed. This would usually involve a shuttle which crashes or is very badly damaged, and for which there is no reasonable opportunity for the ship to recover or repair it. What constitutes a reasonable opportunity is a judgment call.

A shuttle probably not destroyed. This would usually involve a shuttle which crashes or is damaged, but for which there is a reasonable opportunity for the ship to recover or repair it. Again, what constitutes a reasonable opportunity is a judgment call. Essentially I assume that any shuttle which could be recovered was recovered.

A shuttle crash lands on the Drayan II moon, killing Ensign Bennett. Lieutenant Tuvok is able to make repairs and get it flying again, so although we never see it take off and return to Voyager, this may well happen. A second shuttle carrying Janeway and Paris lands on the moon without incident.3

Chakotay's shuttle is destroyed on the planet. Later Chakotay steals a second shuttle, abandoning it near the Borg cube. This is presumably recovered. Neelix also uses a shuttle to travel to the planet; this survives without incident.17

Chakotay's shuttle is destroyed on the planet. Later Chakotay steals a second shuttle, abandoning it near the Borg cube. This is presumably recovered. Neelix also uses a shuttle to travel to the planet; this survives without incident.17

Janeway and Chakotay keep a shuttle when they elect to stay behind on a planet because they are infected with a virus. They beam back to the ship at the end, leaving it behind, but presumably it is recovered before the ship leaves.25

Pulaski exposes herself to the children aboard a shuttlecraft to prove they are safe; when planning this, she says that if it does not work they can abandon the craft. Since it does not work, we can assume that the shuttle is abandoned or destroyed.38

Riker, Troi and O'Brien are in a shuttle crash at the beginning of the episode. Since there is too much interference to beam the people up without pattern enhancers, the shuttle must have been a permanent loss.43

Shuttlepod 1 is damaged when Archer and Trip are abducted. Enterprise is seen locating the shuttle at the beginning of the episode, and it seems certain that it could be retrieved and put back into working condition again.46

The shuttle Galileo crashlands on a planet with seven crewmembers aboard. The craft ultimately makes it back into orbit, but falls back into the atmosphere and burns up. All of the crewmembers onboard are beamed up shortly before the shuttle is destroyed58

The shuttle Galileo was taken down to "God's" world by Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Sybok. It was abandoned there after being attacked by God. Though we didn't see it recovered, the Enterprise certainly had the time and ability.10

Two shuttles are stolen by the officers who carried out the Tarchennen investigation. One is destroyed as it enters the planet's atmosphere, the other is on the surface. It is not known if the latter is recovered, but given the infection risk I would guess not.68

Two shuttles are stolen by the officers who carried out the Tarchennen investigation. One is destroyed as it enters the planet's atmosphere, the other is on the surface. It is not known if the latter is recovered, but given the infection risk I would guess not.68

Overall

Series

Movies

0

0

2

DS9

7

1

2

ENT

1

2

7

TNG

16

4

4

TOS

2

0

0

VOY

13

4

14

Overall

39

11

29

Summary

So, we can say that throughout Star Trek we have seen
thirty seven shuttlecraft destroyed. Another ten were probably destroyed, whilst
a further twenty two were possibly destroyed - but more likely recovered and
returned to service. Surprisingly, TNG has had more certain shuttle losses than
any other series!

Enterprise is going to have problems with shuttles, I
can tell. It is establispag in "Terra Nova" that the ship has only
two shuttles. It is highly improbable that this ship would be able to build
replacements (unlike Voyager - see below). So even one or two losses are going
to result in a major continuity problem for the series. So far we have twice
seen shuttles put in positions where recovering them would be difficult, though
not impossible - and once seen a shuttle almost certainly lost. Time will tell...

Somewhat amazingly, only two shuttles were lost in all
of The Original Series. Even considering that this show lasted only three seasons
compared to the standard seven, this is impressive. I guess Kirk was pretty
careful with his shuttles!

More than the others, TNG tended to interact with the
rest of the Federation. This leads to a couple of oddities - for instance, when
Picard gives Scotty a shuttle in "Relics", it is not lost as such
- Scotty isn't likely to head right out of the Federation with it. So we can
assume that sooner or later it will wind up back with Starfleet. Hence it is
not listed as lost, whereas the shuttles Janeway gave away in "Counterpoint"
are, since we are never likely to see them again. We also tend to see quite
a few ships that do not belong to the "hero" ship in TNG, and these
have been included.

It's actually debatable as to whether Runabouts can be
considered shuttles or not. On the one hand, they get their own NCC numbers.
On the other, they clearly aren't meant for long term independant operation
the way a Starship is. Since they are carried by larger craft and used much
as shuttles are used, I tend to place them in the shuttle category. For the
purposes of this site, any craft less than 50 metres long and which is typically
housed aboard another ship is classified as a shuttle. As well as the above
named Runabouts, we have also heard of NCC 72452, the USS Rio Grand, NCC 72936,
the USS Rubicon and NCC 73196, the USS Volga.
Though they may have been involved in minor scrapes, none of these was in serious
danger of being destroyed during the series.

We saw thirteen shuttles destroyed throughout the seven
year run of Voyager, of which a dozen belonged to Voyager itself (the other
being the Runabout Yellowstone). Another four were probably lost, and another
twelve possibly lost - a total count of twenty eight craft.

Obviously Voyager could not carry this many shuttles
- there simply is not the space on the hangar deck to fit twenty eight shuttles.
Rick Sternback, who designed Voyager and created many of the technical concepts
for Star Trek, has this to say : "Jeri Taylor once joked that the Maquis
are all below decks building new shuttles as they're needed; we figure that
shuttles can't be all that difficult to manufacture, especially if you're carrying
around spare shuttle warp coils stacked like tires at a gas station. That's
the only hard part, since the forging and layering of the coils is a nasty
long process. The hull materials and avionics are pretty easy, so you can replicate
new parts, assuming that you stop off for raw asteroidal frags and rare ores,
etc. once in a while."

Indeed, it is perfectly believable that a Starship would
be able to manufacture shuttlecraft, especially if those craft were originally
designed with easy construction in mind. Think of the Type 9 shuttle as being
something like one of those kit cars you can buy - and reasonably equipped
garage could assemble such a car. Most components of a shuttle should be easily
replicatable - we know from TNG's "The Next Phase" that a Starship
can replicate items such as a computer core. Warp cores and antimatter pods
would not be much bigger than this. Even assuming that the warp coils themselves
could not be replicated, as Rick points out above these items are no bigger
than a typical car tyre. It would be perfectly possible to stack several hundred
of them in even a fairly small room.

My estimate would be that the components of a Type 9
shuttle could easily be replicated and assembled within a day or two.

Canon support for this idea has come from two sources.
Firstly, in the episode "Alice" Chakotay states that the ship has
"a full complement" of shuttles. This establishes that the ship has
indeed replaced those lost previously. Secondly, in the episode "Extreme
Risk" the crew builds the Delta Flyer. While it is true that Paris had
already done some of the design work on the craft, there is still some way
to go when the crew embarks upon the project. Nevertheless, the design is finispag
and the ship built from scratch within a few days. Later a replacement Delta
Flyer is also built after the original is destroyed. Building a Type 9 would
be child's play compared to this project.

Really, I can't see why people have such
a hard time with this. There's no reason to suppose that shuttles can't be
built on a ship; there is canon proof that they can and have been doing just
that. The folks who made the show confirmed that this was the case. What exactly
is the problem?